How Do I Send An Email Newsletter?

Put Your Email List To Good Use With A Newsletter

So you’re building an email list, compliant with the always-enjoyable new GDPR legislation. You’ve navigated the need for subscriber consent, you have a great privacy policy on your website, and you are empowered with the ability to build an email list of wonderful people who actually want to hear more from you.

Great. So now what?

Send Out Valuable Emails

We all know that once you have an email list of eager readers, you’ll want to start sending these people emails. Usually in the form of a newsletter.

Your newsletter might contain:

Stories about what your business has been up to.

Customer success stories or testimonials.

Tips, tricks and advice for your audience related to your niche.

Special offers or product releases that you want to share.

You want to use your emails to build trust with your audience, provide value and entice people with what your business has to offer them.

But you don’t want to spam them.

You don’t want to be that annoying or irrelevant sender who never has their emails opened by their recipients. You know the ones – the emails that you can’t even remember signing up for. Or the ones you never bother to open – even to unsubscribe. They aren’t even worth an unsubscribe? Shameful.

Of course you want to send people valuable emails. That’s a no-brainer. Emails that people will actually want to open. You want to be the source of value for people, so that they are more likely to use your business, and benefit from their wise decision to do so.

Keep Your Word

You also need to send people emails as regularly as you said you would, and no more. You might have mentioned this in your privacy policy, or even better – on the form that they signed up on.

Once you’ve got this transparent, honest, faithful GDPR mentality in your bones, and you’ve got great emails to send – you need a way to send emails to a large group of people.

You need a good email vehicle…

Why Can’t I Just Use My Normal Email Provider?

You can. But it might not last. It depends on how many people you are reaching, and how often you are reaching them. Once you get in to the regular hundreds or thousands of email send-outs, things become risky. Sending out mass emails becomes like getting in to old car that you have to hope and pray will start every time you turn the key.

Once a standard email provider such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Microsoft Outlook start to notice that you are sending out regular emails to large groups of people – they probably won’t like it. They will detect it, and they will often assume the worst-case scenario – that you are a spammer, sending out mass emails “willy-nilly” to any email address you have managed to grab a hold of during your time as a professional internet thug. Or even an amateur one. Let’s not discriminate.

Basically, standard email providers don’t like mass email send-outs. They don’t want any dodgy characters using their services, and they are likely to blacklist you. Blacklisting means you are no longer allowed to send out emails, which is a real pain when your main objective is to send out emails.

You need something more reliable. You need a vehicle you can use, with no worries about it one day giving up on you. You shouldn’t have to worry about upsetting any mysterious email gods who will put a halt to your email-sending-vehicle if you break their rules or offend their traditions.

Free Email Marketing Services

Enter a far less risky solution to mass emails. We could call them the newsletter heroes of the modern age. There are companies out there, often providing free services to begin with that allow you to design and write beautiful looking emails, and then send them out to hundreds, even thousands of people.

And up to a certain number of hundreds, or thousands, they don’t charge you a penny…

So who are these modern day super heroes, swooping in and saving you from being swamped and covered in the shame of a blacklist from a standard email provider? Well, let’s introduce some…

MailChimp

MailChimp is a popular one for email marketers. They provide a free service up to 2000 subscribers, allowing you to send up to 12,000 emails per month. Isn’t that kind? Once you really start to build your list into the thousands, they begin to introduce affordable fees, starting at ten bucks per month.

Their email design tools are simple but effective, you can set up autoresponder emails, even design custom forms or landing pages for your viewers to see so that they can sign up to something. You can even set up automated email delivery times based on your user’s timezones. Chimps have always been known for their intelligence.

They offer email and live chat support, along with videos and tutorials if you need them.

TinyLetter

TinyLetter is wonderfully simple email marketing tool, and free up to 5000 subscribers. How marvellous!

TinyLetter is owned by the folks at MailChimp. It doesn’t have fancy email design templates like most other email marketing services – it is far more simple than that. You can add images, but changing the colour schemes and structure of your email isn’t part of the package.

TinyLetter is for the upmost simplicity, for people who want to get their message out there with very little fuss.

You can easily just paste in your email subscribers, import from gmail, or upload a CSV file.

This service is great for DotGO clients with thousands of people on their email lists. You can simply go to your mailing list on your DotGO account, click “generate mailing list”, copy the list and paste it directly into your TinyLetter email sendout.

Perfect.

Mailerlite

Mailerlite don’t limit how many emails you send out per month. Even on your initial free plan, you can send out “unlimited emails”. The service is free until you hit 1000 subscribers, then fees are introduced to carry the load of the extra subscriber bulk. Like MailChimp, plans start at ten dollars per month.

Mailerlite send out over 1 billion emails every month from over 400,000 clinets, including businesses, startups and freelancers.

Mailerlite has a very easy to use interface. You can easily set up forms, design emails and build multiple email lists using their clear and concise system.

You can set up autoresponders too – even “automated workflows”. These are multiple automatic emails, programmed to be sent out at specific times after someone subscribes to your newsletter or joins your email list.

Campayn

Campayn offer a modern, slick user experience, beginning with a free plan up to 500 subscribers, sending 12,500 emails per month. Then the fees begin at 19 dollars per month.

As with Mailerlite and MailChimp, you can customise your email send out and landing forms, and you can also set up a single autoresponder message for your subscribers.

Emails are responsive for mobile devices, as well as for those larger computer screens. Email, video and article support is provided as standard.

But Beware! Anti-Spam Guidelines Persist…

Don’t misunderstand – using email providers such as the ones above does not give you free reign to run a muck with your emails. You can’t become a spammer just because you are using MailChimp or any other company related or not related to primates.

There are still rules to follow. Even if you are using a proper newsletter provider, your emails can still be detected as spam by your recipients’ systems. Or even worse – people can actually mark or report your email as spam – which is never good for your brand’s reputation, or for the efficiency of sending mailouts to reach your audience.

What Is Spam Anyway?

Any mail that people don’t want, don’t expect or didn’t give consent to receive. MailChimp defines spam as “unsolicited, irrelevant email, sent in bulk to a list of people.”

Become Spam-Less

No one likes receiving spam. Not even spammers. They only like sending it out. In fact, they probably don’t even like sending it out. We are yet to see the success story of a spammer who knew from the age of five that he or she was born to send out unwanted emails to people he’s never met.

To be fully empowered in the world of email marketing, you must become spam-less, like a loyal vegetarian, or a despiser of canned meats.

Do become spam-less, follow these guidelines:

Use a professional newsletter service, as we have discussed.

Don’t be too selly. If you are just pasting product images all over emails and then sending them out to people, this could be interpreted as spam. Avoid being interpreted as spam at all costs.

Send out newsletters as often as you said you would, but no more. You want to keep it regular so people remember who you are, but you don’t want to overstep the mark of trust. Keep that mark clear in your mind.

Use a professional business email address with your own domain name (eg. “contact@mybusinessname.com”). This is usually more well-received by email providers that your readers will be using, compared to addresses like “mybusiness@gmail.com”. Be a pro.

Always provide an unsubscribe link option, viable for 30 days (most newsletter providers do this as standard).

Avoid sloppy or imported code – it’s best to use the design templates provided by your newsletter host instead. They are usually simple enough to use.

Have a clear newsletter design which promotes engagement – give people valuable things to click, or prompt your readers to respond to you with feedback or answers.

Never use shared, rented or purchased lists. This is obvious to anyone who’s been awake in the business world recently. GDPR is real. As we’ve mentioned already, only send emails to people who have given you consent to do so.

Avoiding your emails being labelled as “spam” by any systems (or humans) means three things:

People are more likely to see, open and read your emails, and get to know you, your business and what you can offer.

You avoid the hassle of being labelled a spammer and being slowed down in your customer outreach efforts.

You do not become a hated reject of society, which of course all spammers are. You are more likely to be loved if you are not a spammer. You might even get a crown and a letter from the Queen saying how well you’ve done, and that she loved your emails. We can’t make any promises, of course. In fact, don’t count on that last one.

How Is This Relevant For DotGO Clients?

Royal approval aside, we take care of your email list for you. People always have the option to opt-in to your email list, to receive further emails from you whenever they fill out a form on your website. Your email list can build itself, even while you sleep.

Then all you have to do click “generate email list”, copy the address list, and then paste it to your email marketing service’s address space. Simple

Moving Forward

So if you are looking to start sending out emails to large numbers of people for business purposes, check out the email newsletter providers mentioned above. Try some, test out their systems, and see if you like their vibes.

Hopefully you will find your perfect match, and live the rest of your life in vibrant email marketing harmony.